Monday, December 08, 2014

The last few months, I have been struggling with some personal issues, that I would love to share with you but I don’t know quite how without sounding like I’m whinging.

My health has worsened. To the point where I’m teetering on the edge of a total breakdown again, this time I’m emotionally stronger. But I’m not sure how long I will be able to last.

My creative impulses are still there but I’m not making anything new, I’m not writing hardly at all, what little creativity that is created is mediocre and not worth anyone’s attention. The new blog lies unused and unappreciated, as I am unable to cope with the level of stress creating a new form for this blog would entail.

The only really worthy creation is my novel, which is right in the middle of publication. Artwork and cover colours are really the only honest-to-good creation I am able to work on, and that is in conjunction with a layout artist and my editor, so my input is minimal.

Unfortunately, I can’t share that with you, not yet, because I’m anxious that the results be seen at their finish rather than half-way through.

Its closing in to the world’s biggest, most expensive festival, Christmas. Something I personal don’t celebrate, so I’m not even doing anything for that. I have a GREAT idea for a homemade decoration that could be customised for every occasion, but even that lies stagnant inside my head as I am too exhausted to even near my sewing machine.

Sometimes, there are moments in life when health, mental and physical have to take precedence over everything else. It seems that if I could just improve a little, I would have the impetus to get back to blogging, creating and sharing the results with you all.

At the moment though, I feel stuck in a rut. As if I had fallen down a deep pit and without a huge shift I can’t get out. No matter how hard I try to pull myself out, to call for help, to see the light I can’t. I merely wear my already worn body out.

So for now, you lovely readers will have to wait it out. I have hope to be able to show you my new book in the next few months.

Tuesday, April 08, 2014

I want to live as old fashioned as possible. I am old fashioned in views and in my style. I like the era’s between the World Wars and the post-war era up until the early 60’s.

Don't get me wrong, I admit that I AM a hypocrite! Why? Because I'm quite happy to enjoy the advances of the modern era, a smartphone, a flat screen TV, a dishwasher, the internet, a tumble dryer and my laptop. I could survive without those things but that's where i am spoiled, because I don't have to. I live in a world of scientific advancement where all these things are part and parcel of our daily lives.

It’s just that don't want to live in a modern style home, or wear modern style clothes. I want the nostalgic version of the 1950’s, the rose coloured glass version we all love, the one without racial oppression, sexual inequality, rationing or the fear of atomic war. I would love to be a housewife, working only from home and in the home. Having my children around me, taking care of them myself instead of shipping them off to a day-care nursery, having the luxury of cooking a home cooked meal and eating that meal with my husband and children.

That's just it though, isn't it? All of those things are luxury. Gone are the days when those were normal desires for a woman, or in fact considered the role of a woman. These days the role of a woman has a more ample definition, and that is good. A woman of the 21st Century is supposed to be able to have everything, a career and a family. Yet, making the decision to stay at home and taking care of your home and family is frowned upon. Some countries more than in others. It's seen as lazy, not wishing to make a contribution to your family's economy, or as a luxury only for women who don’t have to work to help their family, like those women on the Real housewives show.

The media is filled with images of women who have it all, a high flying career, a great figure, a loving relationship with her partner who has an equally high flying career, happy and well rounded, confident and loved children and an immaculate home with healthy, delicious home cooked meals. I know women who manage to pull of this fantastic lifestyle and by god I applaud them heartily, it’s true that sometimes those home cooked meals are frozen lasagne and that the women themselves look a little frazzled. I wish I felt able to live like that, I wish I relished in having a high flying career and a family to come home to.

But I am half that woman, I don't feel able or even willing to live like that. I mean I have to work for a wage, who doesn’t in this day and age, but I’ve never wanted a career, never strived to make lots of money, or felt overwhelmingly passionate about living the corporate life. I want an old fashioned life, I’ve always wanted that in an old fashioned style home.

So it seems I've come full circle, so what's my point in all this? Is it merely a well written (if I do say so myself) rant? Probably! I prefer to think of it as a magnifying glass on society, a comfort to others who feel the way I do.

We are not alone. We can choose to be housewives, if that’s what we want, so long as our partners agree to that. It doesn’t mean that we are not emancipated, or that we believe a woman’s place is in the home and only the home. Rather it is another choice, a choice we have the right to make as women in a more equal society, just like having a career and a family is a choice.

Friday, October 11, 2013

This is a continuation of the theme that has been invading my blog for quite a while.

I have struggled through another week, and come through it tired of crying, but still depressed. With a husband who equates living in Britain with my leaving him. I suppose because he’s unable to even consider the possibility of his own happiness in my country. Although he expects me to be happy in his country!

He says he wants me to tell him how I feel, when I’m angry with him and homesickness overwhelms me, but what he really wants is a quiet life. In the end all men want is a Stepford wife, a woman who looks good, cleans house, cares for him and doesn’t feel anything but euphoria and ecstacy. Maybe the older ones are a little better, but probably not by much.

The trouble is every time I do tell him I’m angry with him, its another argument about the same thing over and over again. You can only rock the boat so much until someone falls out of it. I don’t want him or me to fall out of the boat! I’m a woman I need to talk, I need the safety valve of blowing off steam. I have girlfriends, my parents and this blog but that doesn’t communicate my feelings to him, but I’m scared I’m going to rip us in two!

As I said in my last post, my homesickness isn’t quite the same as say the homesickness of someone just arriving in a new place. Don’t get me wrong, the feelings are just as intense as those of someone who has recently moved away from everything they know! Its just that all of those little tips to make yourself feel better don’t really help me any. All I can do is keep busy, and try not to dwell to much on how much better I would feel in the UK. I’ve arrived at that stage of numb emptiness, where you don’t really care about anything anymore, because “where’s the point?”. I manage to get up in the morning, I manage to get dressed, I loathe leaving the flat and I don’t really want any company, not even my husband’s, even though I love him to death! But he doesn’t get it. He will never get it.

I find myself searching for things to give me that sensation of being home, its a terrible obsession! I watch BBC entertainment, which is about the closest thing I can get to british TV, I watch Dr Who repeats there and wallow in british-ness of it all. I have my Google account open practically 24/7 waiting for the next email from my parents, I call them up on the phone or Skype and absorb the sensation of home. I do everything I can think of to feel that sensation of wellbeing, even if its just for a moment. There’s only so far you can go on moments of wellbeing, eventually the sensation fades from those things and your left with the overwhelming feeling of being lost and unsure. Eventually you just have to do the one thing that cures the ailment, and hope that you don’t hurt anyone in the process.

I don’t know when I will go home, but I know - past the numbness, past the emptiness, past the insecurity of being here that in the end I will have to go home and it will have to be for good. I just hope that when that day comes my husband comes with me.

Saturday, December 04, 2010

This is a post in support of the wonderful "Diary of a Vintage Girl", lately the absolutely gorgeous writer (I say this in pure admiration as a Pin-up fan myself) posted a very sincere and personal blog and I'd just like to give kudos to her. I'm an infrequent blogger, I'm never quite sure who actually reads this and I mostly do it for myself. However I do admire and am inspired by what I think of as "proper bloggers" that post every week and actually talk about something people care about. So, I'd like dedicate this post to her. We live in stress laden days, when everything and anything can affect you so deeply as to knock you off your personal tight-rope. Yes, there are people out in the wide-world suffering starvation, war, disease and other horrific things that are imposed upon us by our fellow human beings, but that's not the point. Being depressed, suicidal or not isn't about what you've suffered, what horrific thing you've been through or not as the case may be, it's about how you feel about it. How you cope with your suffering, how you deal with what has happened in your life or rather how you don't feel your able to cope. Stress isn't about one random and separate event, stress are like bricks on your own personal wall that traps you inside the alcove, they build up, more so if you don't find away to deal with the things that happen in your life. Once they've built up it could be the smallest thing that sends you into total blackness or utter panic. Finding some form, small and meaningless though it may seem, to express yourself is a good way to knock down the bricks and help you understand how and why you feel the way you do. Writing, performance art, music, drawing and painting are but a few of the ways lots of people let out the demons and blow off some steam. If you feel that you've got no one to turn to, how about a spiritual outlet or seeking professional counselling and help? There are many ways and means to find meaning and to understand your feelings. All you need is hope and like the old saying goes "Hope springs eternal", even when you feel hopeless you can still find hope. Its buried deep inside of you, all you need to do is get through one day, and you will find it. The darkness, the blackness like everything in life is temporary. You'll never be consumed by it, not whilst you live and breathe. Every breathe you take is hope, hope you'll take another, hope you'll feel better, hope that the sun will shine down on you. From one sufferer to any others reading this, hang on, just one more day. Every day brings you a little closer to being free from the darkness, to teaching yourself how to avoid building the brick wall.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Is it just me? I feel like I've been through some horrific event that has left me scarred and sore and yet I just haven't had a holiday in two years. I'm on the brink of falling down some deep abyss from nothing but backloads of stress. Every little thing makes me break down and burst into floods of tears, I walk around on my personal eggshells trying to not let it show and doing my best not to bother anyone, especially not my nearest and dearest since they're feeling the same way. I worry when they don't tell me how they feel, especially from the male half of them, because I worry it some sort of sign that they're going to leave me. No matter how much I read "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" by John Gray, about caves and wells I still feel like I've just come out of the emotional spin cycle and been put through the wringer. I still get scared that my loved ones are just working up the courage to tell me it's over. But what can I do? I can't just leave for calmer climes, because I have responsibilities, duties to the company I work for, obligations to fulfill. Should I be turning more towards spirituality? Am I an empty void waiting to be filled up spiritually? Yet the mere thought makes me feel like crawling back under the bed clothes and hiding away till it all goes away. Is this normal behaviour? Am I just depressed? Why? I have a good job, a loving fiancè and a nice place to live? What's missing? Shouldn't I be reeling in overwhelming contentment? I know that this is not going to be cured by merely going away, but surely the distance can help you re-evaluate. Nor will marrying my fiancè any earlier make me suddenly happy again, because I'll certainly take these feelings along with me, besides which they say weddings are one of the MOST stressful occasions in a persons life, God help me if I took on one now! All I can do is wait it out as best I can and hope I don't fall off the edge before I get some kind of time off, or I'm not sure what I'll do. Over and out

Friday, February 02, 2007

I've always thought that home was where the heart is. It's part of the reason why I've never felt uncomfortable moving around, living in different countries and cultures and having to learn umpteen languages along the way. I always considered that so long as I was with the people I loved it didn't matter where I was.

That was until I spent nine glorious month in Stockholm, Sweden. It's true that there were a couple of hard months intermingled with those nine months, but on the whole I really love Stockholm. So now I find myself pining for Stockholm and the life I had there, even though I moved to where I am now to be closer to my family trying to get over a period of depression. This turn around makes me face other questions: Do I just miss Stockholm because I hadn't got bored of it? Would I have become bored and purposely there eventually like all the other times in all the other countries? Or is it that some part of me, no matter how incredibly small, longs to be back with my fellow vikings?

I did feel unbelievably at home with my swedish friends, learning the language and living the wonderful cosmopolitan lifestyle of a city dweller. Even though I earned my money cleaning up the dust and dirt of other people in apartment stairwells and offices. But what does it matter if you can be in the european version of New York City, in the scandanavian BIG APPLE, sometimes called the Venice of the north.

I mean there is no way on gods good earth that I'm ever going to have the opportunity of living in New York, at least not without a miracle. But I'll always be able to go back to that wonderful city, the saviour of my heart and soul (not literally!). The city was the one thing that made me stay even after I got my heart brutally ripped to shreds, but lets not dwell on the bad... rather lets be happy and joyful!

I can draw no conclusions, other than the fact that I will always love my darling Stockholm and my next aim is to find a man who mirrors that wonderful city!